


Cult

by chaotic_orangegod



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Alternate Universe, Demon Sebastian, Horror, M/M, Stephen King's IT meets Rosemary's baby, hopefully that didn't just give everything away, small town horror au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:41:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23585539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaotic_orangegod/pseuds/chaotic_orangegod
Summary: The quiet town of Victoria mourns the unnatural death of a resident every week. Ciel Phantomhive and his friends seem to be the only ones interested in why. But there is a newcomer in town who is just as interested in the murders.Evil comes to Victoria only to find it has resided here all along.Welcome to Victoria. God is watching.
Relationships: Sebastian Michaelis/Ciel Phantomhive
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	1. The Alley Behind St. Aiden's

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I posted this a while ago and then discontinued it, so if you feel like you've read this before, you are not going insane.

“Welcome to Victoria. You won’t last very long here.” 

“Oh, stop being so dramatic, Alois.” Lizzy pushed a blond curl over her shoulder before commandeering the newspaper from her friend’s hands. The front page showed a grainy picture of the town’s welcome board, blood soaked and bent at an odd angle.  _ Welcome to Victoria. God is watching. _ The real line was worse than whatever Alois could come up with. “Mother said it looked just fine yesterday morning.” Just fine meaning painted blood red and rusting.

“Obviously. He only kills at night.” Sieglinde wiggled her fingers at the papers and Lizzy handed them over. It was rumbled and creased from being in Alois’ backpack all morning. 

“How do you know it’s a  _ he _ ?” Alois asked. He was playing with the contents on his jello cup, mixing up the red gelatin until it no longer resembled its original self. He had an odd habit of stirring his food until it all mushed together. 

“Most murders are committed by men,” Sieglinde pointed out. Alois wasn’t quite sure if she was smug because her gender was the less murderous or because she knew something he didn’t. He frowned at her anyway. 

“Do you think he burns in the sunlight?” Lizzy asked. “Like a vampire?” 

“Vampires don’t exist.” A boy took up the seat beside her, tray of cafeteria food in his hands. He was, as always, impeccably dressed even though they all wore the same Weston uniform. His shirt was pressed neater, a shade whiter. His sweater lacked any fray. His shoes shined even in the dim cafeteria light. His hair had been combed back, away from his sapphire blue eyes. Over his silk Weston tie draped a heavy silver cross. It was a family heirloom, brought over from England by the Phantomhive ancestors. Small symbols had been etched onto the surface of the cross and a blue gem sat gleaming at its center. It never left its spot around his neck. 

“Who do you think it is then, Ciel?” Sieglinde pressed. She shoved the newspaper over for him to see. He glanced at it, then shrugged in a way that suggested he couldn’t care less. “Come on, you must have  _ one _ theory.” The group kept their eyes on him, waiting. 

“Father said the murders are God’s way of punishing us for our sins. The murderer can be anyone; it doesn’t matter. He, or she, is just God’s weapon. Only the devout will be safe.” His tone was as if he was discussing the position of the sun in the sky, but his words made Lizzy and the others drop their eyes. None of them were devout, not in the way Vincent Phantomhive said they should be. 

“I think it’s that crackhead who’s always snooping around the dumpsters behind the St. Aiden’s,” Alois said. He tugged at his own tie, which sat undone and wrinkled around his neck. St. Aiden’s was the catholic themed diner across the church. It was the only place in town that served chocolate cake, so Ciel frequented it often. By default, his friends were also regulars. 

“He doesn’t even have enough strength to pick up a wooden stick. How could he plaster two bodies to the sign?” Sieglinde pushed her red plastic tray away and leaned back in her chair. Alois snatched up her uneaten fries and popped them into his mouth. 

“Don’t drugs give you superpowers or something?” he asked, shoving another french fry between his lips. 

“Only in comic books,” Ciel countered. He was reading the newspaper the others had forgotten about, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. His lips moved along with the printed words and his neck bent low, fingers tracing the smudged ink. Two bodies, two men, who didn’t have anything in common other than the fact that they were Victoria’s residents. “Why do you think they were killed?” 

Sieglinde, Alois, and Lizzy never considered that question. They had assumed the murders were random; none of the victims had anything linking them together. Last week, little Beth was found facedown in the fountain. A week before that, Officer Andrews and his decomposing body traumatized four kids playing in the sandbox. The murders were random, the victims linked by nothing other than a circular symbol burned into their lips. Ciel’s question felt like a trick. 

“Because they weren’t devout, because they angered God,” Alois guessed. Ciel’s sapphire eyes flickered up to meet his friends. It was clear Alois didn’t mean it. That was the answer Vincent Phantomhive expected to hear. Ciel’s father always wanted to talk about God. 

“You sound like my father.” His attention drifted from the newspaper to his untouched tray of food. The gray mash potatoes. The still pink chicken. It was a good thing he wasn’t hungry. 

“I thought you believed the same thing,” Lizzy said, so softly that Ciel almost missed it. 

“I do.” 

When your father was the mayor, there was very little you could do in terms of voicing your own opinions, especially when your opinions contradicted his. Ciel had learned all his life that what he thought wasn't important. What he said was. And what he said was always words his father had placed carefully into his mouth. None of his words were his own. Even his favorite color. Sapphire blue. 

That evening, after school was finished and all his club activities were done with, Ciel walked the long trek up the hill to Phantomhive Manor. It was a very old house, built during British colonialism. His ancestors had fought in the revolutionary war, and the civil war. For the right side in the former, the wrong side in the latter. 

“Father?” The house was quiet when he entered, quieter than it normally was anyway. When he dropped his backpack in the foyer, the sound echoed down the many hallways, and when he called out again for his father, the house mimicked it back. 

As usual, Vincent Phantomhive was out. Ciel liked to check anyway, just in case his father was tucked away in his office or the library instead of in the town hall. He had frightened Ciel once by standing in the dark of the library, his head tilted up at the mosaic ceiling. He hadn’t seemed alive then; he barely seemed alive now. Neither of them did. For the past two years, both father and son walked around like ghosts. 

With the house all to himself, Ciel climbed the stairs to his room and began changing out of his school uniform. Ciel slipped on boots and a dark blue sweater before running back downstairs. There was a sandwich on the kitchen island, baby carrots by its side. The maid must have prepared it for him before leaving for the day. Ciel grabbed the sandwich but left the carrots. He had exactly 50 minutes. The front door swung shut behind him. 

There was no point in staying in an empty house when he could be anywhere else. Ever since the murders, people kept to themselves, stayed mostly in their homes and off the streets. As a result, it was just Ciel and the streetlamps. 

Victoria used to be a safe place. They had a few burglaries, teenagers trying to convince their friends they were cool by breaking into a house and stealing a few pieces of jewelry. There was nothing else to do in Victoria if you wanted a reputation for being a rebel. The closest they had to a gang was Druitt and his group of housewives. 

People died almost every week now. The police did nothing. There was never any evidence, they said. People got snatched from their homes and showed up as corpses the next morning. The sheriff did his nightly rounds. Some of the families put together a neighborhood watch. Sometimes, Ciel would see a dad sitting on his porch with a rifle in his hand, as if that would help in any way. 

The white glow of St. Aiden’s sign flickered down the block. It was the only place in Victoria still open despite it only being seven o’clock. The sun was setting earlier now. It was pitch black by the time Ciel opened the diner’s door. 

* * *

October was the month for monsters. 

Most of Victoria followed tradition, setting out grinning pumpkins and cotton spider webs. Cardboard witches watched from windows and inflatable boogeymen glowed on the lawn of otherwise dull houses. But the streets were empty. 

The newcomer knew the origins of Halloween, had watched it evolve into the mockery that it was now. If the original monsters could see what became of their image, they would no doubt be furious. He, however, had been more amused than angry, as he often was with humanity. 

There was a little shop that caught his attention, due mainly to the scent of death drifting off of it. The decor suggested flowers were sold inside. A closed sign hung from the door. A demon always went where death called, but he only lingered a while before continuing on. 

There was something about this town that wasn’t quite right, though he couldn’t exactly point it out. It gave him a strange feeling, not a bad one, but not a good one either. Victoria seemed to drift between humanity and hell. Maybe that was why he had found his way here after wandering through the woods for so long. He’d been to numerous towns, all of them the same when it came down to what really mattered. Victoria was different. Whether it was the people or the town itself, he couldn’t yet tell. 

The diner was open, but near empty save for a table of teenagers and a few bored waitresses. When he entered, the bell rang and the teenagers looked up. Two girls and one boy. They looked at him like he shouldn’t exist. Which he found peculiar, because out of all the things in the world, he was the most natural phenomenon. He smiled briefly, then sat down on one of the stools at the counter.

The diner smelled like a corpse, but there wasn’t one in sight. He ordered a coffee and ultimately left disappointed. The smell was stronger outside, particularly in the back. He held the coffee, mostly for the image of normality, and turned left down the alley by the diner. 

_ Oh _ . 

Two dumpsters sat side by side against the back wall of the diner, but only one of them had a body losing its innards on a pile of decaying trash. The other dumpster had the head. But that wasn’t what caught his attention. He’d existed for as long as the earth had. Bodies, no matter how mutilated, would never surprise him. Living people were an entire different story. 

A boy was crouching by one of the dumpsters (the one with the head), the back of his hand pressed over his mouth and nose. The boy was short, his hair dark and his skin pale. The sleeve of his sweater was speckled with blood. 

“Can I help you?” the boy asked, voice dark with annoyance. He stood and turned, dropping the hand that was covering his nose.  _ Can I help you _ , as if he wasn’t the one in an alley with a dead body. 

“Can you throw this away for me?” The demon held out his coffee cup, still full. The liquid inside sloshed around as he shook it. The boy hesitated, but took the cup and dropped it by the dead guy’s foot. “Thanks.” 

“You aren’t going to ask about the body?” He gestured to it as if the demon had previously missed the decaying mess. 

“Do you want to talk about the body?” The demon shoved his hands in his coat pocket and leaned forward without taking a step to get a better look in the dumpster (the one with the body). “What did you use to behead him?”

“I didn’t behead him.” The boy’s voice was strangely calm for someone being accused of murder. “I think the person who did it used a butcher’s knife.” 

“Perhaps someone from the restaurant?” 

“No. Too obvious.” The boy stared at the body for a bit before turning around to squint at the demon. “Welcome to Victoria, by the way.” 

“What makes you think I’m new?” the demon asked. The boy shrugged. 

“I don’t know you.” 

“What makes you think you know everyone?” He liked that question, judging from the brief grin that flickered over his face. 

“I’m Ciel Phantomhive,” he said, an answer and an introduction. 

“So valiantly stating your name? What if I went to the police?” 

The boy, Ciel, moved closer until they were a breath apart. “I’d have to behead you.” Taken aback by the boldness, the demon grinned. 

“I should warn you, I’m not so easily beheaded.” 

“How would you know? Has anyone tried?” Ciel was cocky now, and the demon wondered if there was even an ounce of fear in his little body. 

“Plenty,” the demon said. 

“Well, that would change if you tattled on me, Mr…” 

“Michaelis. Sebastian Michaelis.” Ciel scoffed before turning to walk away. 

“You introduce yourself like you’re James Bond.” 

“You should be glad I’m not,” Sebastian said, gesturing to the corpse.

“Yes, I’m glad you’re not.” He was gone from the alley before Sebastian could respond. 

* * *

Back in the diner, Ciel grabbed his to-go order (a slice of chocolate cake and a burger) before sliding into the same booth as his friends. Alois was on his second glass of strawberry milkshake and Lizzy was cleaning the ketchup off her fingers with a napkin. Sieglinde was speeding through the math homework. 

“There’s a body in the alley,” Ciel said. He took a french fry from the pile in the middle of the table. 

“Are you serious?” Lizzy asked, face pale. She stared at the wall that separated the diner from the alley as if the body was going to crawl through the plaster. 

“Did you call the police?” Ciel shook his head no, which led Sieglinde into pulling out her phone. He slid out of the booth before the call went through. 

“I wasn’t here.” His friends looked at him like he’d grown six extra arms and weaved a web in front of them. “Because I’m supposed to be home, not because I had anything to do with the body.” He turned, took a step, then stopped. “There’s a new man in town. Sebastian Michaelis.” 

Alois jumped up and pointed at the counter like he’d just had an epiphany. “I  _ told  _ you, Lizzy. I  _ told _ you he didn’t live here.” Lizzy was rolling her eyes. Sieglinde grumbled that she hadn’t seen anyone walk in and Alois said it was probably because she was too worried about her calculus. 

The operator finally picked up. Ciel nodded to his friends, and left for home. 

  
  
  



	2. The Portrait of the Late Mrs. Phantomhive

The portrait of the late Mrs. Phantomhive always creeped Lizzy out. Painted in oils on a large canvas that made her look life size, Rachel Phantomhive stood unsmiling in the west hallway where she now resided. Her dress was modest and the most delicate of blues, the sleeves long and puffed to compliment a high collar and a cinched waist. Her eyes seemed to follow you around the room. 

Lizzy kept her head down. Rachel Phantomhive had been a good aunt, though she was quiet and they did not spend very much time together. She was sickly, Lizzy remembered. For the first half of his life, Ciel had been too. 

But then Vincent begged God on his knees with prayers on his lips and Ciel’s sickness went away. But Rachel got sicker, and no amount of prayers could save her. Or maybe Vincent had already spent all his worth on his son. Sometimes, Lizzy wondered if the price her uncle paid for his son’s health was the life of his wife. Both seemed to happen simultaneously. 

Lizzy knew better than to ever wonder that outloud. 

She was climbing the stairs to Ciel’s room, where a golden glow had pooled on the wooden floor by his door. The rest of the house, save the kitchen where Tanaka was making dinner, was bathe in darkness and shadows. October had just started, so the entirety of Victoria was dressed in pumpkins and witch hats. The Phantomhive house always seemed empty this time of year and was never decorated on account of Vincent Phantomhive deeming Halloween “the devil’s day”. 

The rest of the town usually followed their mayor’s every word, but this was the one exception. Vincent never bothered to enforce his anti-Halloween beliefs. Which was good, Lizzy thought. She liked Halloween almost as much as she liked Christmas. 

“Ciel?” His door was partially open so she peered in. 

“Lizzy, I thought you and the others were going to Soma’s party.” He was sitting at his desk, rosary beads in his hands. There was a black book she had never seen before lying open under the lamplight. He snapped it shut when she came closer. 

“We are,” Lizzy started, plopping down on his bed. His sheets were always some shade of blue. Tonight they were navy. “I wanted to see if you’d change your mind.” He shook his head. 

“Father said-”

“You’ve never been! Just tell him you’re studying with us at the library!” Ciel blinked at her, face almost blank of emotions. He used to be different. Before his mother died, he had been bubbly and vibrant. Now he seemed as lifeless as those scarecrows people hung up in their gardens. 

“It’s a party in the  _ woods _ , Lizzy. Honestly, how much fun could it be?” He had already turned back to his desk, his biology textbook opened on top of the black one. 

“A party in the woods sounds  _ amazing _ ! And it’s Soma’s party!” She couldn’t see his face, but she knew he was rolling his eyes. Outside, a car honked impatiently. 

“I have a test tomorrow.” He looked up, smiling. “Go have fun. Tell me about it during first period.” 

Once the sound of Lizzy’s footsteps faded down the stairs and out the front door, Ciel slid the biology textbook back in its place and flipped open the book underneath. The leather bound notebook was one he had found in the manor’s library by accident. He had knocked over a painting, one of the smaller oil-on-canvas ones, and there the book was, nestled into the dark gray wallpaper. 

The library was old, dust covering most of the out-of-reach shelves, but Vincent had renovated a section of it a few years ago after Rachel died. He had the wallpaper changed and new paintings put in. Large windows were installed in the west wing, but the books and shelves were untouched. If it had not been night, dust would be drifting up like glitter in the sunlight. Ciel hated sitting there. It was horrible for his asthma. 

There was no dust on the notebook, which meant it had recently been touched before Ciel stumbled upon it. There was a bookmark, small and thin and blue. He had studied it for a few minutes before realizing that it was  _ her _ ribbon. 

It was a strange thing. Ciel had expected to relive happy memories when he held something of his mother’s, but the ribbon only brought him despair. It felt heavy in his hands, despite being made of silk and weighing less than nothing. He stared at it until the air around him turned bitter, like ash and burning skin. 

The ribbon laid where he had found it, but Ciel was much further into the book. He had spent nights buried in it. So much that it haunted his dreams. He slept with it under his pillow, spent nights under his covers with a flashlight and a pen as well as another notebook to copy down notes. If only he was this diligent in regards to his classwork. 

It was a book of magic and spells, but not spells any respectful witches (if there were such things as witches) would use. Ciel did not know much about dark magic, or any type of magic for that matter, but he knew what blood sacrifices were. 

He took the book to bed, wrapped in his blanket with the bedroom door shut. His fingers were stained with ink from where he touched the script and his eyes were struggling to stay open. Still, he flipped through page after page, sure that the haunting images would visit him in his dreams. 

The night his mother died, Ciel had been at the Pitch, which was nothing more than a park where the shadows melted together in a blur of arms and legs and claws and fangs. The trees there were left unattended so that their branches curled and soared into the air, creating monsters on the swaying grass below. 

Soma had been having one of his many parties, usually held at a clearing just a mile deep into the woods surrounding Campa. Ciel hadn’t attended. He liked Soma; the boy was a little too cheery but he was friendly enough. That wasn’t why Ciel had turned down his invitation. 

There was a girl, one with mousy brown hair and blue eyes deep as oceans. She had invited him, out of the blue, to dinner at St. Aiden’s. It wasn’t a date, Ciel had told his mother. It wasn’t a date but he had paid their bill and offered to walk her home. 

She was daring and he didn’t believe in the supernatural, so they took a shortcut through the Pitch. Under the moonless sky and the gathering of shadows, she kissed him. It was short, barely a peck and not even his first kiss, but she tasted like strawberry milkshakes. She invited him to hang out with her friends afterwards. They were exploring the supposed tunnels under the town, she said, for Halloween. 

Before he could answer, the sound of sirens wailed through the streets, accompanied by thick smoke that weaved through the branches of the old oak trees. He ran, because the name Phantomhive was on everyone’s lips and he was close enough to see the tips of flames dancing on the manor’s roof. Firefighters crowded the front. The town only had a few handful, the rest were volunteers. Their hands grabbed at him as he dove through the front door despite the screams of protest from his neighbors. The air had smelt like death. Flames licked at his skin. 

Nothing inside the manor was alive. Not even his mother, who would have been stuck in her bed with legs that lost their strength weeks ago. 

The entire town mourned Rachel, but no one seemed to remember Doll and her friends who never came back from their trip to the tunnels. Four kids disappeared that night while Phantomhive Manor burned. 

* * *

The flashlight was broken, had been working just fine before their trip down into the tunnels. Now it flickered twice before dying completely. Somewhere in the back of the group, Alois groaned. The sound echoed down the concrete, accompanied by the slow steady drip of water onto the puddles beneath their feet. 

“Hang on,” Seiglinde said, tapping the side of her bag. “I think I have spare batteries.” She pulled out a box of mints and paper clips, frowning. “Nevermind.” 

“If this doesn’t kill us, I’m going to kill you.” Alois marched to the front of their little group, fists clenched like he was going into a fight. “We should have brought Ciel,” he grumbled, disappearing into the dark. His grumbling could still be heard, but he was delving deeper into the blackness and the rest of them had no choice but to follow. 

“Yeah, then he would’ve lectured us about the sins of alcohol and we’d be home instead of doing this stupid dare.” Seiglinde followed after, trying to step over puddles she couldn’t see. “Spend an hour in the tunnels, bring us something back” one of Soma’s friends had said, “and we’ll let you hang out with us for the rest of the year.” They were older and the type of kids that had the type fun Alois, Lizzy, and Sullivan liked. 

“It’s not so bad,” Lizzy said. The entrance to the tunnels was deep in the heart of the Pitch, hidden behind a grove of trees and rusty swing sets. “I think my eyes are adjusting.” She didn’t know what she was meant to bring back or if there were anything in these concrete walls besides rats and bones. And Lizzy did not want to hold either of those. 

“Okay, then you can lead us, Miss ‘I have night-vision.’” Alois was cursing from somewhere in front of her and Seiglinde had gone quiet by Lizzy’s side. 

The tunnels weren’t even supposed to exist. The entrance was there, sure, but the concrete stairs were supposed to lead only a few feet down before coming to a small storage room for gardening supplies back when the Pitch used to be a community garden. Instead, they’d found a door to a long hallway of stone walls and dripping water. The tunnels smelled like dew and musk, and the walls were ice to the touch. 

“We don’t have to go so far down,” Lizzy said, reaching out to grab Alois’ shirt. “Lets just give them Sieg’s mints and say we found them here.” 

“You mean  _ lie _ ?” Alois asked, voice colored with false astonishment. But Lizzy wasn’t paying attention to him. She could see some light bouncing off his blond hair now. 

“Did the tunnel end? I see streetlights.” The water underneath their feet reflected back their faces, and a light danced down the walls. 

It took them a few seconds to realize that they weren’t moving towards a light; the beam continued to grow larger even when they all stood still. A soft tapping echoed down the hallway and the sound alone pulled at the scream lodged in Lizzy’s throat.  _ Footsteps _ , she thought.  _ Why are there footsteps? _

The light was blinding now; they instinctively held up their hands to shield their eyes. It was a monster. Or monsters. It was the thing that lived in the tunnel that came up during the night to kill. It  _ had _ to be. Lizzy was convinced she was going to die. And she definitely did not want to die like this. 

“What are you idiots doing?” the monster said. Lizzy opened her eyes. The terrifying, horrible creature before them was Ciel. 

Ciel tilted the flashlight to the floor and watched his friends blink the brightness from their eyes. There was a wrench in his hands, which he shoved back into the pocket of his coat before any of them could see. He was a bit bitter that they had found the door by accident. It had taken him a week to discover the dent in the bricks. 

“I got lost,” Ciel offered when they started to interrogate him. 

“How did you even end up here? Where do these tunnels lead?” To be honest, he didn’t even know. The black journal, tucked into the inside of his coat, only laid out the entrance. He had been mapping the maze of stone for a month and somehow still managed to get lost. 

“Let’s go, okay? My asthma is acting up.” 

Lizzy shook her head, however, and nodded to something behind him. “Tell us what you’re doing down here with your friend.” 

Ciel froze. He could feel ice traveling up his limbs as he stared at Lizzy with wide eyes. The flashlight felt heavy in his hands and the air seemed to still, waiting. 

The thing was, he had come down  _ alone _ . But Lizzy was not wrong. There was another light, far in the tunnel Ciel had come from. And there was a shadow of a very tall man. Ciel knew that tunnel turned right into a wall, but that was where the light was coming from. Further down was the entrance to the Pitch. In the opposite direction was the darkness, which Ciel only had a partial map to. 

“Is there another way out?” Lizzy asked, catching on to Ciel’s sudden terror. He nodded to the darkness. 

“We don’t have a choice.” 

“Maybe it’s Soma. Maybe he’s just checking on us.” Alois took a step in the direction of the light, but the shadow on the wall grew like it was coming closer, and Lizzy dragged them all into the darkness. 

Ciel flicked off his flashlight and grabbed hold of Sieglinde’s hand, which he only knew was her’s because it was so small and warm. Lizzy took his other hand and together they made their way deeper into the tunnel as a chain. 

Alois and Sieglinde each kept one hand on the right and left wall, respectively. They walked until the light behind them was a small blip, then the tunnel veered in two different directions. Ciel couldn’t read his notes without turning on his light, and he still didn’t feel safe enough to do that. But he knew these turns. They went left. 

It was quiet. Dripping water, whooshing winds from above, but quiet. It was the kind of quiet that made you feel like something terribly wrong was going to happen. Midnight quiet. Covers over your head and limbs tucked into the blanket quiet. Holding in your breath so you could listen for creaking stairs or opened doors quiet. 

Then immediately, the sound of heavy boots clomping down a long concrete tunnel. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who left kudos and comments!

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave kudos and comments and remember to wash your hands.


End file.
